Tourist Trap (Rebecca Schwartz #3) (A Rebecca Schwartz Mystery) (The Rebecca Schwartz Series)

client proved as ridiculously weak as I suspected it would be, I most probably wouldn’t put on a defense. I said I fervently hoped that each member of the jury understood that failure to put on a defense, far from being an admission of guilt, was a choice open to any defendant and should not be considered in their deliberations. The ball, I said, was entirely in the D.A.’s court.
    Don’t imagine that, after saying all that, I didn’t feel like the biggest ass in northern California. Liz objected a couple of times, on grounds that I was arguing, and I didn’t blame her. But having no defense, Dad and I had more or less decided not to present one. We were leaving our options open, waiting for Liz to leave us openings, and hoping for a sign from heaven before making up our minds for good; but for openers we couldn’t do any better than that. I’m not proud of it, and probably wouldn’t even mention it, but it’s a matter of public record and can hardly be hidden.
    Almost immediately, Liz lived up to her reputation for being colorful—the first witness she called was none other than counsel for the defense.
    “Miss Schwartz, were you at Mount Davidson shortly before dawn on Easter morning?”
    “Yes, I was.”
    “Will you tell the court what you were doing there?”
    “I was with my friend Rob Burns. He was covering the Easter sunrise service for the
Chronicle
.”
    “I see. But weren’t you there a little early?”
    “We were.”
    “May I ask why?”
    “Objection, Your Honor.” Dad’s voice sounded tired, as if he had lived long enough to hear hundreds of second-rate lawyers try to get away with irrelevant lines of questioning, and would probably die of boredom if it happened again. His voice fairly begged the judge to spare him such an undignified death, yet somehow simultaneously managed to suggest that he wasn’t begging at all, that his objection was so obvious, so utterly right, that he need hardly bother voicing it. He was wearing a gray suit with more polyester than wool in it, a rumpled blue shirt, and a tie bearing three strategic grease spots. He hadn’t had a haircut in weeks, and his pants were a little too short. Any juror who didn’t love him would have to have a heart of strictly lapidary interest.
    “Overruled.”
    “Did you tell the police you and your friend were sleeping in the van near the mountain so as not to be late for the service?”
    “Objection!”
    “Sustained. Strike the question, please.”
    But the jury couldn’t strike the question from their minds. Liz had now established me as a loose woman who would sleep on the street with a man to whom she wasn’t married. Bad enough in San Francisco, but this was more conservative San Jose—I began to have doubts about that change of venue.
    At Liz’s request, we approached the bench. “Your Honor,” she said, “Miss Schwartz will testify that she heard certain noises which led her and her—friend—to investigate the site at the top of the mountain. In order for the jury to understand the nature and intensity of the noises, I need to establish where the witness was and what she was doing when she heard them.”
    “Miss Hughes, I’m going to ask you to abandon this line of questioning.”
    The jury murmured among themselves. The judge had saved me from testifying that I was attempting to pee in public when I heard the noises, but now imaginations were free to run rampant—the very proper all-white, middle-class jurors probably thought I’d been copulating in the van with my “friend.”
    “Did you in fact hear noises, Miss Schwartz?”
    “Yes. A crash, and then a sound like a person saying ‘oof.’ ” Mild laughter in the courtroom. The judge gaveled.
    “And did you investigate?”
    “Mr. Burns and I did, yes.” Normally I hate the courtroom formality of referring to everyone by last names, but under the circumstances I felt it necessary to restore a little dignity to the Schwartz-Burns camp.
    “Will you tell the court, please, what you found at the top of the mountain.”
    This was a tricky one. She now had me, counsel for the defense, in the unhappy position of having to describe the gory murder scene. I had to be truthful, yet hold back as much as I could. “I saw a man on the cross, apparently dead.”
    “Could you explain what you mean, please, by ‘on the cross.’”
    I was starting to sweat. “His wrists had been nailed to the cross.”
    “Could you demonstrate the position,